


Worth a Thousand Words

by BardofEryn



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artist Loki (Marvel), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, FrostIron - Freeform, Light-Hearted, Loki - Freeform, M/M, Minor Loki/Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 01:38:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18297689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofEryn/pseuds/BardofEryn
Summary: Loki has been imprisoned in Stark Tower after the first Avengers movie. Bored, he turns to drawing and discovers feelings he didn't know he had. Feelings he'd like to keep secret from a certain playboy-philanthropist.





	Worth a Thousand Words

Loki stared up at the ceiling of his room. His “cell” as he preferred to call it since he was a prisoner here in Stark Tower until Thor could make contact with Odin. He mentally made a list of the things he’d been allowed access to in this stripped down version of a guest bedroom. A bed with a blue comforter, a wooden end table, a wooden desk with three drawers, a chair he suspected had come from this land called “Ikea,” a standing lamp with a carefully constructed unbreakable bulb, plain green curtains covering an unbreakable glass window, a bookshelf, two books in Old Norse (as if that were the only language he could read), a notebook, and some pencils. 

His stomach turned when he thought of the notebook. Like most things that required artistry, Loki had excelled at drawing from a young age. At over a thousand years old, he’d gotten to the point where he could draw from memory. He got up off the bed and walked over to the bottom drawer of the desk. Carefully, he opened the drawer and slid out the notebook along with a pencil. He sat down at the desk, noting with some disdain how the chair wobbled, and opened it to the first page. 

At first he had drawn pictures of the city he had hoped to rule, but, as he drew, a solitary flying figure had appeared in mechanical armor. He had hoped that the pictures he’d drawn of Tony Stark bantering with him in Stark Tower had been him trying to imagine how he’d misstepped. But slowly his own image had faded away from his pictures. Then the details of Stark Tower had faded away. What was left was only Tony. His face when he’d told him that going up against the Avengers wasn’t a great plan, scotch glass in hand, him gesturing as he told him he couldn’t come out on top, the stolid look in his eyes as he vowed to avenge the Earth if he destroyed it, the look of terror on his face when he’d touched his chest with his staff, the look of surprised relief when he’d realized it wasn’t working. For some reason the look of surprised relief was the one he favored the most. He had spent what felt like eons working on it and still didn’t feel it was quite right. There was a softness and a pride in it that made him ache. He turned his head to the side, trying to banish the thoughts that had started to become a nuisance to him, and flipped the page to a blank one. He began working on a picture of Iron Man after he’d defeated him. He’d asked for the drink he’d offered earlier and Tony had a look on his face that clearly remembered the drink and was questioning whether to actually give it to him or not. Such an odd expression from a man who had just won a battle against a god. Even though it reminded him of when he’d been beaten, he hungered for that look again.

He was bent over the notebook, eagerly drawing Tony’s eyes, when there was a knock on the door. 

“Hey, Reindeer Games!” a voice shouted from outside his room.

He paled and shoved the notebook in the bottom drawer. “What is it, Man of Iron?” he asked, trying to sound cold and failing.

“It’s dinner time,” he responded. “And since Pepper won’t go near you…”

“Right,” he growled, getting up from the chair and slamming it back into place. The chains. It was overkill since depriving him of his staff and fitting him with power inhibitors made him basically helpless. But, for some reason, it made the mortals feel more secure for him not to have a full range of motion. 

The chains presented other problems than just being awkward. Stark was the only one who dared approach him unshackled so he was the natural choice to put them on. Loki dreaded the moment when skin touched skin and almost felt relief when it was replaced by cold iron. Awkward as the chains were, they didn’t make him hitch his breath the way being that close to Tony Stark did. They suggested power that had been caged. His reaction to Tony suggested weakness that was almost uncaged. 

He took a deep breath to steady himself and barked, “Come in.”

“Yeah, don’t yell, Rock of Ages, I’m right here,” Tony quipped as he opened the door, a pair of handcuffs and leg irons in his hand. “Didn’t Ass-guard teach you anything about manners towards your host?”

“You are not my host. You are my captor,” Loki corrected as he sat on the bed and extended his arms. 

“Eh… Lil’ of both,” he replied as he put the handcuff around his right wrist. Loki shuddered and looked away. 

“Look, Reindeer Games, the cuffs have to go on,” Tony commented, completely misreading Loki’s movements. He snapped the second handcuff around his left wrist. “People are afraid of you. Legs.”

Loki put his hands in his lap and extended his legs, feeling like a small child. “You aren’t,” he pointed out, trying to distract himself from the feeling of Tony carefully putting the irons around each ankle. 

“Well, that just makes me special,” he commented as he completed the task. He grinned as he stood up. “You know what else makes me special?”

Loki swallowed the fear and longing that was building up in his throat, but couldn’t find the words to answer.

Tony walked over to the desk. “I’m a fucking genius.” He slid open the bottom drawer and pulled out the notebook. 

“No!” Loki screeched, falling to the ground in his attempt to lunge and snatch the notebook from him. “Put that down, Man of Iron!”

“Only when I’ve seen what your plans are,” he said as he opened it. 

“There are no plans!” he exclaimed, inching forward on his elbows. “Just idle scribbling!”

“Yeah. The pictures of the city would suggest otherwise,” he said, tapping the first page of the notebook.

“Son of Stark…” he growled as he tried to crawl towards Tony. 

“Look, it’s no use, Reindeer Games. I saw you scheming things down in this notebook,” he remarked as he flicked to the next page.

“How?” he demanded as he struggled towards him. 

“Saw it on camera. You really didn’t notice we’d installed… Well, several actually,” Tony remarked as he surveyed the picture and moved onto the next.

Loki’s stomach dropped and he stopped struggling. “You mean to tell me that you have been watching me?”

“Mhmm. Since day one.” He flipped another page. “I may not be a god or alien or whatever, but I’m not stupid.”

“Then you already know what is in the notebook,” he remarked. “Why go through it in front of me?”

“Well, here’s the thing. I have cameras for if you tried to escape through that window, through the door, some spell with the mattress, if you dismantled the desk, but I never really thought to put in an overhead one.” He flipped another page. “Nat will kill me if I ever admit that, but I didn’t really see you as the ‘draw out with a pencil a plan to murder us’ kinda guy.”

“It is not like that, Son of Stark,” he said, trying to turn on his silver tongue. “I was given but two books to read and had little else to do. As you can see, I do draw.”

“Really well, actually. Congrats on that,” Tony commented. 

Loki’s heart nearly stopped in his chest. The compliment was one thing, but he could also tell from the pages Tony had turned that he was getting to the parts where Iron Man began to be featured. “Thank you,” he said hurriedly, hoping manners would succeed where threats had not. “As you can probably tell by now, it was just idle entertainment. Were I to truly plan your deaths, I would…”

“Hold that thought, Reindeer Games,” Tony said as he turned the page. 

Loki suddenly was glad he was lying down. He could see Tony furrow his brow and flick to the next page. And the next. And the next. Loki wished with all his might that he could suddenly gain the power to sink through floors. 

Tony’s mouth curled under his mustache. “Well, uh… You certainly have a talent,” he remarked as he flipped through the rest of the notebook and then put it down on the desk. Loki could see a faint color to his cheeks. Was he blushing? “Uh… Well, you don’t seem to have any evil plans in there so…” His words trailed off. 

“Son of Stark,” he said, trying to sound authoritative. 

“It’s Tony,” he replied as he crossed his arms over his chest. 

Loki rolled over onto his side and stared at him. 

“My name’s Tony,” he said. “You can stop callin’ me ‘Son of Stark.’ It’s… weird.”

“Tony,” he began again.

“Y’know, Loki, it occurs to me that most artists like live models,” Tony interrupted. “And, if it keeps you out of mischief, then I could probably… Sit for you. I-If you want.”

The words “nothing could please me more” flitted through Loki’s brain. Instead, he simply struggled into a sitting position and nodded at him. 

“Right. Then, it’s a… date.”

“A date,” he repeated. He smirked. “Yes. That would do nicely.”


End file.
